NSF RAPID - Economic Risks, Immigration Threats and Public Attitudes After Britain's Brexit Referendum

University Of Texas At Dallas, Richardson TX

Investigators

Abstract

This project is motivated by the observation that resurgent populism has become a highly consequential force in major mature democracies including the United States and the United Kingdom. One important effect of the new populism occurred on June 23rd, 2016 when the UK decided in a national referendum to leave the European Union. The project focuses on the nature, sources, and consequences of public attitudes towards the economic, security and cultural costs and benefits of EU membership, paying particular attention to attitudes towards immigration. The project also will gather data on the perceived risks of leaving the EU, the impact of attitudes towards "Brexit" on voting in the June 8, 2017 general election, and reactions to subsequent "divorce" negotiations between the UK and the EU. The United Kingdom's historic Brexit decision has attracted global attention and the proposed project will produce broad impacts through analysis of the dynamics of public attitudes and political behavior in the UK. These are particularly pertinent as the Brexit negotiations between the UK and EU unfold over the coming year. The project also examines possible responses to terrorism by including survey questions first used following the 2005 terrorist attacks on London. The project's all data and research findings will be made freely available in highly accessible form to scholars, students, policy makers, media commentators and laypersons. This project consists of three large (N = 5000) national panel surveys administered in the UK. Two surveys will be fielded before and after the June 8, 2017 UK general election, with the third conducted in spring 2018. The three surveys will include a large panel of respondents participating in three previous national surveys administered prior to and following the June 2016 Brexit referendum. The resulting six-wave national panel, with three waves already done, facilitates sophisticated multivariate analyses (e.g., mixed Markov latent class and dynamic panel models) of the individual-level dynamics of the attitudes and behaviors of interest and their drivers. By replicating key questions asked in monthly surveys conducted since 2004, the new surveys also will provide unique leverage for mapping the aggregate-level evolution of relevant public attitudes over the 14-year period preceding and following the historic June 23, 2016 Brexit vote. It bears emphasis that the questions asked and data gathered in the proposed study are not and will not be available in the British Election Study or any other surveys.